In a land­mark first, Chi­nese sci­en­tist claims birth of ge­net­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied ba­bies — and all hell breaks loose

A Chi­nese re­searcher is claim­ing that he cre­at­ed the first-ever ge­net­i­cal­ly edit­ed ba­bies us­ing CRISPR/Cas9 tools that have now be­come a com­mon fea­ture in labs around the world. And the news trig­gered a tem­pest in sci­en­tif­ic cir­cles the world over as re­searchers who have been us­ing gene-edit­ing tech to re­fine plants and forge new ther­a­pies try to puz­zle out the stun­ning —if true — de­vel­op­ment fea­tured on YouTube.

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